Lies My Parents Told Me
by Trivial Pursuit
Summary: Ten lies the Avengers told each of their children. Part of the Triviaglass Avengers 'Verse
1. Roman Bryusovitch Banner

Monsters are real and ghosts are real too. They live inside of us and sometimes, they win.

-Stephan King

1. That there are good people and bad people. Until he turns sixteen Roman's mama is a superhero. Then she's a super spy. When he turns forty-three, an impossibly aged Nick Fury lets him read his mother's file. And it turns out she's not a just a superhero and a super spy, she was also a plain old spy, a killer, a ballerina, a thief, an exercise in biological and psychological engineering, a sociopath, a liar, a lover. So many pieces of her that he never got to see, he only saw the best, just like when he only ever saw the best in his father, not the angry, scared, sad parts. And maybe it was for the best.

2. That family is happy. Roman's seen the scars on his father' back, he knows what his grandfather did to Papa when he was a little boy. He also knows that his Mama doesn't talk about her parents, instead she talks about men named Ivan and Anton, but never Alian. _Dyadya_ Tony hates his father, Atom and Natalie's Grandpa Howard, but _Dyadya_ Steve was friends with Howard Stark and teaches Zuzu, PJ and Einstein to love Howard Stark like a third grandfather. _Dyadya_ Thor only says happy things about his family but Roman can see the sad reflected in his eyes. Nobody talks about Loki, Odin, and Laufey. _Dyadya_ Clint doesn't talk about his family at time that Roman found his Papa sitting in his lab with a gun like Mama and _Tetya_ Maria and ___Dyadya_ Clint doesn't talk about his family at all.

3. That time that Roman found his Papa sitting in his lab with a gun like Mama and _Tetya_ Maria and _Dyadya_ Clint use pointed at his head Papa was just playing. He called for his Papa and Roman's father put the gun down, wrapped his son in his arms, and lied to him. Roman knows this was a lie because Papa told Roman never to tell Mama about it. Roman is sure that Mama finds out because Mama knows everything and a week later a man named General Ross dies in his sleep and Papa's shoulders finally relax.

4. That he shouldn't have to fight their battles or take up their mantles when they can no longer support the crushing weight of being the 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes'. The world will always need someone to protect it, so when their parents drop the torch, the 'Minivengers', as _Tetya_ Darcy had dubbed them, took it up. Roman becomes the Hulk to remind people that not all all monsters are evil.

5. That the people you love never really leave you. Because they do. Everyone does

6. That Papa will never hurt him. Roman knows his father will never hurt him the same way Dedushka hurt Papa. Roman also sees the fear lurking under pride and love and wonder in his father's eyes whenever he looks at his son. Roman supposes he owes Dedushka in some sense because without his rage Papa would have been normal all his life and have married the pretty but dull-looking woman that appears with his father in photos at Culver and had some equally dull children named Victor or Regina or whatever it is that Papa would have named his children had Mama not already picked out names a long time ago. But Papa hurts Roma whenever he asks Mama to punish Roman instead of him, hurts him whenever the pride and wonder slide away and only the fear remains.

7. That only the good die young. Well, this might have been a little joking on his mama's side, but he know's it meant something to her and his father since it was carved on the inside of the wedding bands they sometimes wore. Roman thinks his parents were, ultimately, people who loved each other and what they stood for. And maybe that's all you need to make you 'good'.

8. That torture is simple. It isn't. It's an art; a careful application of force to create the maximal effect. Roma meets the man introduced to him as 'McCullough' when he's sixteen and he and his mother are kidnapped. His _mama_ had always said that only the unskilled spies use torture to get what they want, that it id a last resort, but Roman sees the beauty in what McCullough does. Only the very best operatives would be able to notice and exploit his mother's weaknesses. Roman canning help but think how wrong his mother was when her screams rip through the room as McCullough opens Roma's mouth and reaches in with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

9. That Mama is safe to be around. Once, when Papa goes away and the _Zelenyy Voi_n comes out. The _Zelenyy Voin_ is only unhappy for a little while until Mama sticks a funny little stick into the _Zelenyy Voin_'s arm and he drops down to the ground, his head cradling into Mama's lap. She'd smiles and strokes the _Zelenyy Voin_'s hair like Roma'd seen her do to his papa so many times. 'You were right _lyubovnik_, there really is magic in science, in every tranquilizer there's an apple for my sleeping beauty.'

10. That everything was going to be alright. Because, eventually, it wasn't anymore, was it?


	2. Natalie Maria Potts-Stark

Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.

-Bob Thaves

1. That she was named after Auntie Natasha. This is, in fact, a truth. Sort of. Natalie was named after the person her auntie was when her parents first met her, a person who is not her Auntie Natasha. Natalie is named after a woman who lives in the carrousel of her auntie's Liar's Palace. Natalie is named after a nobody and everybody.

Natalie didn't have to be a Stark (She could be a Potts). This is ridiculous, and everyone who tells her it knows just how silly they sound. Natalie was a Stark from the moment she created her first computer virus at age three and shut down S.H.I.E.L.D. for five hours. Natalie was always a Stark.

3. That alcoholism was a serious problem. This may not be explicitly false, but all the really cool people Natalie's met have been barflies, so as long as you're not that attached to your liver...

4. That Grandpa Howard is a bad guy. Natalie thinks Grandpa might have been a really nice guy before the Accident, as Uncle Steve calls it. Natalie asked Corporal Dugan about Howard Stark once and he said that 'Howard was a profoundly damaged man who lost a lot in a very short timeframe and who handled the loss very badly. But before all that he was completely brilliant, like your dad except with better social skills'. Natalie's still not totally sure what she thinks about Grandpa.

5. That men were evil and she should stay away from them. The truth of this is probably dependant on a case-by-case basis, but on the whole Natalie's found all the boys she went out with in high school and university to be very nice (Though this may have something to do with the fact that, whenever someone picked her up for a date her father insisted on showing them his machine shop.).

6. That one day everything her parents sacrificed to make the world safe would be worth something. She knows it's not true though, the old villains will fall or become archaic and redundant and new ones with bigger guns and fancier toys will rise up to take their place.

7. That lying is bad. Natalie's Mommy lies all the time; to reporters, Daddy, the men in suits, her friends, the people who work at Daddy's company. Daddy lies too, but not so much (though sometimes Natalie thinks people prefer lies to his truths). Natalie doesn't like it when people lie to her, but she knows that lies protect people, because sometimes, the truth does not set you free. So Natalie lies to protect the people she loves from the truth. When Mommy and Daddy die, Atom will become the genius, the showman, the Stark, and Natalie will become the protector of keys, the spinner of lies, the keeper of secrets.

8. That didn't silence hurt. This wasn't something her father told Natalie but rather something she saw. If there was silence her father had to fill it up with noise; music, talking, shouts, murmurs, whispers, chewing, whatever so that it wasn't quiet anymore. Natalie vows that when her father is no longer able to fill up the silences she will do it for him.

9. That the suit would protect her father. Everything breaks, and, like her Uncle Clint, Natalie's Daddy is just another squishy human under all the metal.

10. That there weren't monsters under her bed. Well, maybe they weren't under her literal _bed_, but there _were_ monsters.


	3. Adam Yinsen 'Atom' Potts-Stark

**Author's Note: When Atom talks about the MITers stealing a canon he's talking about this: .com **

If somebody told you I was just your average ordinary guy, not a care in the world, somebody lied.

-_Spider-Man_

1. That sometimes you don't see it coming. When Evior strokes his hair back and kisses his forehead he knows he should have seen it coming. When his father starts dusting his face with makeup to keep it at its usual tone he should have seen it coming. When Natalie asks what Roman's doing in every email the first year they're both at MIT he should have seen it coming. When Uncle Clint stops singing along when his favourite songs come on the radio he should have seen it coming. When Eero can't look any of them in the eye he should have seen it coming. The signs are always there, Atom just chooses not to look.

2. That people drink when they're happy. This isn't a lie that lasts very long in the Stark-Potts household, yet it is a lie that is told nonetheless. When Mommy and Daddy fight and Daddy goes down to his workshop to listen to angry music and toss back bitter-tasting amber liquid and Mommy goes to the kitchen and drinks something called 'Château Neuf' by the bottle, Atom knows neither of them are happy. When Auntie Natasha tosses back little glasses of what Atom is sure is water until he is three and tries it out and, before each drink, toasts '_Nostrovia_', '_Yelena Belova_', '_Matushka Rossiya_', and '_Ivan Petrovich_' until Uncle Bruce carefully leads her off to bed.

3. That his father would disown him if he went to CalTech. Tony Stark is very proud of his _alma mater_ and even more proud of his children. So what if he helps MITers to steal the canon _again_ just to rub it in Atom's face? And so what if Atom just _might_ have re-painted all the Iron Man suits orange and white? He got his second PhD. at MIT and besides, Natalie went there for her third Masters, all of which made up for the slight of not having a Brass Rat on Atom's finger the first time around.

4. That being a genius was better. Sure, he built his first solo rocket when he was three, and sure he was at CalTech by the time he was sixteen, but it was really lonely. Because while Roman was as smart as Atom, Roman went to Culver (For the sole purpose of rubbing his existence in the faces of his father's old colleagues, who quietly seethed whenever the Black Widow decided to pop over to see her son and gleefully intimidate her husband's former colleagues), so they don't go to the same university for six years until they both move to MIT. It sucks walking through schools and being shorter, younger, richer, smarter that everyone else and being looked down on for it. It hurts when he can't have real, normal friends in his age group because they all look down on him as a freak.

5. That being a Stark meant nothing when it really mattered. Maybe being a Stark would never mean anything to his father, but to Atom it meant that he had a family, to Atom it meant that he had parents who loved him, to Atom it meant family and love and safety and security.

6. That his name is Adam. His name is Atom, duh (Auntie Darcy taught him that word. Also, philibuster and digress, which is what he's doing right now). It's what Daddy and all his Aunties and Uncles call him and 'Talie, who's his twin and so she should indubitably (Auntie Darcy taught him that one too) know what his name is. The only one who doesn't call him Atom is Mommy. She calls him Adam so Atom thinks she must be confused and he tries to tell her. Eventually she just throws up her hands just like he's seen her do with Daddy and walk away, muttering about 'Starks'.

7. That two is better than one. Don't get him wrong, Atom loves Natalie with all his heart, he can't even begin to imagine what life would be like without her. But like most things in life, she is a mixed blessing. Atom loves having a twin to confide in, but he hates that they are seen as just two halves of a whole. Which is ridiculous. Atom builds (Robotics, physics, biology, astronomy) and Natalie destroys (Poisons, explosives, viruses - virtual or otherwise.). Atom likes sci-fi and fantasy, Natalie likes the classics and long philosophical musings. Atom is the archetypical Absent Minded Professor (even if he's a teenager) and Natalie is edgy and smokey, a mixture of _Femme Fatale_ and Debbie Harry. Atom is reserved, but what he shows is his true self, Natalie is loud, exuberant, coy, seductive, but none of the faces she shows are her own.

8. That theoretical physics were for pussies. (This was another Anthony Edward Stark special.) Atom thought his father was full of shit. Theoretical physics are not for the faint if heart; how can someone weak spend their lives pouring over chalkboards of equations for things that they're not sure will ever exist and can never see.

9. That teenaged girls are human beings. Atom's sure that teenaged girls aren't human, that there must be some sort of alien species who come in and body snatch perfectly normal and healthy girls and turning them into vicious killing machines on their thirteenth birthday. Atom shares this feeling with Roman and they spend most of the year in which they are thirteen trying to prove this theory, though they eventually have to stop when their research grinds to a halt because none of the teenaged girls in their acquaintance except for Evil are willing to donate blood for science.

10. That there is love in the world. Atom can't see it. He can't see it when he he looks at pictures of the destruction his family has caused. Atom can't see it when he looks at Uncle Thor's family. Atom can't see it when when he reads a history book. Atom can't see it when he looks through his microscope or at his machine. Atom can't see it when he looks at people walking down the street. Atom can't see it when he goes to Stark Industries Board of Directors meetings. Atom can't see it every morning when he hears the latest news. But Atom can see it when he and Evil curl up on the couch together on a rainy day, she with her books and he with his StarkPad. So maybe his parents weren't totally wrong.


	4. Evior 'Evil' Thorsdóttir

"Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly..."

_– Sandman_, Neil Gaiman

1. That she was a princess of Asgard. No matter how noble her father's house and how lauded her mother was, Evior would always be the bastard child of Prince Thor and the Midgardian. It was to be expected, of course, she supposed, no self-respecting Asgardian would want the blood of their royal house mixing with that of a commoner. It wasn't that they didn't like Mother, it's just that they would massively preferred it had Father fallen in love with Lady Sif and had proper Asgardian warriors for children. Evior doesn't go to Asgard much.

2. That she is still beautiful. Evior was pretty, she knows that. She looks rather like her mother did when she was young and just getting her Bachelor, or at least Evior was going to, before someone from the veritable bonanza of people her family has pissed off threw sulphuric acid on the left side of her body when she was five. Fortunately, her eyes were shut at the time, preventing blindness, but most of the skin on the left side of her face, head, shoulder, and chest was melted beyond recognition. The scarring pulls and twists the corners of her eye and mouth upward, giving her a slightly demented and cruel look and bequeathing her the nickname 'Evil'. Parts of the cartilage of her ear were fused to the side of her head, creating a little black hole surrounded by shiny pink scarring that looks more like it belongs on a Klingon then a human being. Most of of the hair on the left side of her head will never grow, leaving a patch that is shiny and pink with the skin mottled. Her parents still tell Evior she is beautiful and loved every night before she goes to sleep, but sometimes she can see the doubt in their eyes, see the trickle of fear every time she exits the tower door, the way they keep her off to the furthest side in press conferences even though everyone in the country knows what happened, that they strong suggest she gets homeschooled her even though both her siblings go to school without question, the disappointment and loathing in her grandmother's eyes when it is Evior's turn to be kissed on the cheek. She has some vain hope when side bangs come back into style that she'll be able to cover up her scarring and be 'loved for who she really is on the inside', but it's a futile hope. Once, when she is fifteen, petulant and daring, her father tells her she is beautiful and she say 'No I'm not.' The worst part is the silence after the words slip from her mouth, the way her father doesn't vocalize his disagreement. And somehow that's worse then the lies. She sees the pain in his eyes as he gets up after a few seconds of waiting awkwardly and steps out of her bedroom door to go to Ninja's door. They never talk about it and her parents keep on saying it, but now she knows that the truth hurts more then the most powerful of acids burning into her skin ever could. Somehow though, when Atom tells her she's the most beautiful girl in the world when they're seventeen and drunk for the first time, she knows he's not lying at all.

3. That when you die your life flashes before your eyes. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. But Evior's parents have no way of knowing that. Evior thinks about a lot of things on the way down, but her life never flashes before her eyes.

4. That Evior should be wary around Loki. Evior has always been Loki's favourite of Thor and Jane Foster's offspring and she finds it vaguely comforting to be around him. It was Loki, not Grandmother, Grandfather, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, or Sif who was the first of her father's family to welcome her into the fold. It was Loki who took five year old Evior into the gardens of Asgard and conjured flowers and dragons and told her wonderful stories about halcyon days of old. It was Loki who stroked her hair and sang her lullabies in languages not even her father understands when as she screams after the Incident. It was Loki above all other members of her Asgardian family bar her father, who attended each and every one of her graduations. As pop-psychology-y as it seems, whenever Evior looks into her uncle's eyes all she can see, under the layers of strength and lies, is a scared little boy who wants to be loved for who he is.

5. That apologies mean something. When Evior was very small and her mother was irritated by Evior constantly calling her name she told her that when you said a word too much it lost its meaning. Ever since she's been extremely careful with what she says, limiting her words as much as possible, out of, she supposes, some early childhood fear that if she spoke too much the words would disappear. It is the same thing with apologies, people say 'I'm sorry' all the time and never really mean it and so after a while the words mean nothing at all. They just become a noise with which to satisfy and placate, rather like her father's noncommittal grunting and her mother's absentminded tutting. Inauthentic not only to the victim but to the offender as well, having said the words so many times that they mean nothing at all except as a way to get what they desire. Evior never apologizes.

6. That they don't go to Asgard because Father has Avenging to do and Mother has her Science-ing. Evior sees the expressions when her father looks at Uncle Loki, sees the way the smile slides away from her father's eyes when Evior wraps her arms around her uncle's neck. It's the same look Evior sees on her father when they meet Dr Blake, the same look that Christine Everhart gets whenever Tony and Pepper appear together. The same look that Uncle Loki gives to Father whenever Grandfather pats Father on the shoulder or Grandmother hugs Father and Mother. The green-eyed monster.

7. That Evior is valued just as much as if she were a boy. This is true, but it is also not true. Evior knows her father, knows his family and what they stand for. No matter how much they love her, to an Asgardian, a boy is always preferable.

8. That she should be proud of who she is. Evior is not proud, she does not love herself. She hates that she will never be good enough for her father's family, that she will never be strong enough to serve the Allfather the way her brother could, smart enough to follow Mother, Uncle Tony, Uncle Bruce, Einstein, Atom, and Roman into the sciences, wily enough to become the next Abagnale like Loki, Zuzu, and Auntie Natasha, righteous enough to join in the alphabet soup of militaries and agencies like Eero, Brynja, and PJ. She is scarred, plain, and utterly average.

9. That returning to the people shows you love them. This is bullshit. When Evior turns ten she and Atom run away for three weeks. They camp out in the Impressionist wing of the Met under Degas' 'The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage'. Every day they wander around the galleries, staring at all the different paintings and sculptures. Atom becomes particularly fond of Picasso and William Morris while Evior's tastes are rooted firmly in Munch and Goya. The staff get to know them and smile when they point at the various pictures. Atom matter-of-factly talks about the silkscreening process to an elderly docent who smiles and offers him a peppermint candy, which he takes with a smile and says they're his mother's favourite while Evior attempts to imitate one of Degas' dancers. Someone asks their name once and Evior holds out her hand like she'd seen Auntie Pepper do and introduce them as Adam and Eve. She doesn't see the irony until she is fifteen and immersed in an obsessive study of religious documents with Atom in an attempt to prove some crackpot conspiracy they'd 'discovered' after too many sleepless nights reading _The DaVinci Code_ and three different translations of Dante's _Divine Comedy_. Whenever she goes to the Met the staff always recognize her, waving when they see her and asking about 'Adam'. In tenth grade, in one of her brief forays into the education system, Lonny, the guard for the Picasso room waves and asks how her friend is in front of her entire class. Evior grins and tells him that he just got in to CalTech. Lonny gets her class into the observations booth of the restoration room. Nevertheless, no matter what she tells her parents and aunts and uncles upon her return, Evior knows she would rather never left. The only reason they went back was because they both ran out of money and Atom refused to leave her alone in the gallery (which was probably reasonable; she was planning on moving to the Main Branch of the New York Public Library after he left and nobody would have been able to find her after that, she'd had her route all planned out, exactly how many museums and libraries she'd have to stay in until she turned eighteen.), but the point was, she didn't go back because she cared about her family, she went back because Atom called the police tip line that had been set up to find them and she was escorted back in a police car.

10. That everyone dies. Evior's father is a god. This fact, though revelled in from a young age, has not been properly explored by her siblings. As her mother, Evior, and her siblings get older, her father stays the same age, frozen at a perfect golden twenty-something forever. Evior cannot stand to watch as her mother celebrates her fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth, seventieth birthdays with a lined face and greying hair while her father remains unchanged. She hates it because no matter how sweet people say it is when Prince Thor picks up his aged wife in his arms, all Evior can see is the crippling fear in her mother's eyes that the day will come that she is no longer enough for her eternally golden husband. Evior knows that her father will look exactly the same as he does for her mother's funeral as he will for Evior and all her sibling's funerals, their children, and their grandchildren. No immortality is worth that. There's a reason why Evior doesn't go see her parents much anymore.


	5. Suzanne Margaret 'Zuzu' Rogers

**Author's Note: Because I am lazy and the link in Atom's chapter didn't come through, her it is again, just remove the spaces: www. howe and ser .com**

He: "So why do you do this?"

Me: "I'm not sure I have an answer to that."

"There must be something that you at least tell yourself."  
"Well, perhaps I'm the sort of person apt to do something for no good reason other than I can't think of a reason not to."

-_The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl_

1. That killing people is wrong. Zuzu's father has killed people. He doesn't like to talk about it, none of the vets that Zuzu meets at the cenotaph every Remembrance Day. But they kill and they consider their killings justified and they would do it again. There are so many instances where killing is considered justified.

2. That theft is hard. When she's sixteen Zuzu steals fifty million cash from Uncle Tony. After Aunt Pepper's accountants spend almost a month trying to figure out where it went, Zuzu leaves it on his lab bench. Easy as fucking pie. Zuzu hears there's a French Impressionist painting that was looted by the Germans in the Second World War that's been spotted in a bank in Istanbul.

3. That you can't smuggle a pound of plastic explosives onto a plane in your carry-on. Because with enough duct tape _anything_ is possible.

4. That she needs to sleep. Scientifically, there is no argument, the human body needs sleep to properly carry out its functions. But to Zuzu it is worth it. She loves staying up all night, loves that feeling when days and nights blur together in on solid haze, loves the dead silence on her family's otherwise always noisy house in Hoboken, loves the ache in the pit of her stomach that she gets at five in the morning when it's still too early to get out of bed, loves watching the sun come up over the New York skyline, loves the feeling of power she gets at midnight when everyone else is asleep, loves watching as the world comes to life before her her. She does not need sleep for these feelings alone will sustain her. Besides, midnight is when you get the fastest wifi connection.

5. That everyone is equal. That's bullshit. People aren't equal. That's some trumped up garbage made up by overly PC, upper-middle class pussyfooter types who want to make themselves feel better about their white picket fences, two cars, brand name clothes, and 2.5 kids. Smarter people are better then stupid people. Strong people are better then weak people. Heathy people are better then sick people. But more then anything else, rich people will always be better then poor people. Atom, Natalie, Evie, Arrow, and Ninja would have better lives then ZuZu and her brothers could ever dream of. If Dad was a real person and not Captain America he'd be a teacher or a cop or a shop owner, not someone terribly high-class, likewise, their mother would probably end up being like her siblings, a secretary or mid-level employee. No matter what though, they were still Rogers and Hills, who were still Nobodies, and the others were Starks and Thorssons and -dotrs, who were Somebodies.

6. That there was no such thing as the perfect murder. Alfred Hitchcock was once asked if he though there was a perfect crime his response was that he didn't know, that's what made it perfect. Zuzu spends innumerable days trying to create the perfect crime. On PJ's eighteenth birthday Zuzu gets a postcard '_Dad yelled at you when you told him he was the perfect serial killer. I'm doing it, I'm joining the Army._'

7. That violence doesn't make you stronger. But all of the truly strong people ZuZu knows are violent or have been subjected to violence. Maybe it doesn't make everyone stronger, but it's made her parents and her de facto family stronger. Violence was the tie that brought Zuzu's little family together and fighting together has made them strong.

8. That people die before their time. Duh, that's what 'their time' means.

9. That the family homes are havens from the world outside. There is a photograph that has hung in Auntie Natasha's parlour for as long as any of them could remember. It's a reproduction of a black and white photo of a woman sleeping on the crumpled roof of a car, her gloved hand gently resting on her chest, the roof of the car formed to her body, as if it was a particularly squishy mattress that she had sunken into. The picture has hung on the pure white wall facing the door between an architectural plan of St Basil's Cathedral and a charcoal study for Artemisia Gentileschi's _Judith Slaying Holofernes_ I, each framed in plain black and matted on stark white. The image is so peaceful compared to the hectic and ominous nature of the other images in the room. Three years after the Banners' deaths, Nick Fury laughs hollowly about how very characteristic of Natasha to hang a photo of a dead woman on her wall. Atom wonders hollowly if that was where Evior got her inspiration.

10. That her parents would always love her. When Zuzu is ten her fifteen-year-old cousin, Marilyn, gets knocked up by her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, the one that Zuzu's uncle told Mari to break up with when he met him six months ago when Josh was taking Mari to her sophomore homecoming. Mari lived with Zuzu's family for five months until the baby was born. Josh bailed after they went to the first OB/GYN appointment and Zuzu's mom ended up paying for everything because Uncle Lou refused to pay. Zuzu remembers when Mari went into labour, remembers when she cried for a mother who didn't come, remembers watching her father and brothers frantically try to get one of her parents or siblings to come down to be with their daughter. The baby never had a name, that is the one thing that will always stick out for Zuzu in her memories of that night, as soon as the baby was born a social worker came in trailed by Uncle Lou and Aunt Lena and whisked the baby away. 'Better for her not to become too attached' they'd said. Zuzu's parents had protested, but they were ignored or overruled. The baby was packed off to some childless couple and as soon as she was able, Mari was brought back to her parents' house, the fight seemingly vanished from her when the baby was taken. This was a cautionary tale for Zuzu; if she pushed hard enough, even her parents would stop loving her.


End file.
